


Unlikely Friendship

by cranky__crocus



Category: Private Practice
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-10-03
Updated: 2010-10-03
Packaged: 2017-10-12 09:15:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 13,105
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/123307
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cranky__crocus/pseuds/cranky__crocus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Addison and Charlotte fall into the habit of weekly conversation and bond in the unique way that two such women can.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Working to Silence - Season One

**Author's Note:**

> This follows through season one. I was watching through it for the first time, so I wrote each section with no ideas as to what came next. I'm pretty impressed with how close to the story it managed to be! It's also very slashy/subtexty. Someday, I'll take a few more steps away from canon and write an Addison/Charlotte. :P

i. magic

 

            “I was just…I was just looking for some magic.”

            “Magic as in leprechauns and unicorns? Montgomery, I’m surprised at you.” A slender blonde took the empty seat beside the redhead.

            “Magic. I spent hours getting a patient laid and I haven’t even found anything good with batteries yet,” the first female huffed. Her words already contained the hint of a slur. She gazed at her tequila warily. “I guess the universe thinks I need more than poison oak for karma.”

            Charlotte looked sidelong at the woman, sizing her up and down before flattening her lips and sipping at her vodka cocktail. “From a world-class neo-natal surgeon I would expect more…fluency. Although I suppose your current state does have something to say.” The woman’s eyebrow perched ever higher.

            Addison outright laughed. “Yeah, but more the lack of sex than the drinks, I’ll admit. I got a vaginismus patient laid and I can’t even catch an eye in this glorified little town. Where’s the magic in that?”

            “Magic? You want magic? My cardio head had a heart attack and I had to spend the entire day going through files only to find he had self-diagnosed incorrectly. I can never keep him on. Now I’ll have a hoard of fresh applications on my desk bright and shiny tomorrow before I have time to think.”

            “Why do we do this? We share too much. When we’re together. We just do.” Addie tilted back her tequila and shook her head free of thoughts. “I had McDreamy, loved McSteamy, screwed McAngry and lost McDreamy to McAngsty. Now I feel McEmpty and I want at least one good McToy…and an umbrella. Definitely an umbrella, because damn it all, it’s raining again.”

            “You really do speak another language. It and you baffle me,” Charlotte announced through her contemplative glare-like gaze. Her ‘size up’ had become slightly perplexed, but was growing into a ‘check out’ with her new vodka glasses. She cursed that side of herself and how eager it was to get out, even after a mere quarter of a drink. That meant the redhead with her damned over-active, sensual eyebrows and intellectual eyes was really getting to her. Bad sign. She was supposed to be a cold fish, all work and no play.

            “No news to me. I baffle a lot of people,” Addison conceded. She lifted her drink and pointed it accusingly at her accidental drinking companion. “But believe me, I bet more people baffle me.”

            “Like who, if we’re so prone to getting intimate this evening?”

            “We’re better off with a list of who _doesn’t_ baffle me at present. Because that list is easy. Goose egg, that’s who.”

            Charlotte hitched her chin and stared out over the bar silently, swiping her tongue over her lip before lubricating it once more with her drink. She stole a quick peek at Addison, whose deep blues were serious and sad on one level but contained such endless possibility for mirth and humour. The blonde scourged it from her mind with a deep pull from her glass.

            “Same, I suppose,” she murmured. Her view caught on the mirror perched above the whiskeys. Her eyes looked on fire in the reflection. “I _certainly_ don’t understand those doctors intent on staying in that co-op of yours—including you, of course—but also none of the many staff I keep close under supervision.”

            “Oh, come now, I’m sure you have a few exes roaming your halls, some good understanding and a few regrets…” the redhead whispered, although her gaze was far off.

            Charlotte outright laughed. She reigned it in quickly, switched to a chuckle and cut off even that. “I would like to confess that I have never breached that professional line.”

            Addison gave her a look.

            “…but I would be lying,” the blonde finally corrected, her cheeks gaining only the barest blush of rose. “I was an excited new attending once too. However, I am sure I know my exes least of all.”

            “Amen to that. Who could leave a hottie like me?” Addison inquired, all satire and self-deprecation. She sent a loathing look to her tequila and sucked it dry.

            Charlotte, however, wondered just that indeed. An attractive, dedicated doctor willing to spend hours sorting through the same dusty paperwork and support a best friend—not that the latter meant much to the chief, but perhaps she was willing to admit it touched a deeper femininity within her. Or perhaps jealousy. She wasn’t a ‘best friend’ kind of girl. Regardless, she took in the fiery hair, powerfully hurt eyes, pink lips and diminished posture. She thought, yes, why would they?

            “To that, I assume the answer must be the regular: men are idiot beasts.”

            “Women too. Don’t forget the women. They’re half my heady yet ultimately broken past. Vixens and succubae, the lot of them. I’ll never find my leprechauns and unicorns with beasts and succubae as my obstacles.”

            Charlotte watched this new female with fresh eyes now. New possibilities were afoot. Or they would be, if she weren’t a frigid bitch.

            On the other hand, Addison of the Flames seemed an impeccable choice to at last sear the Ice Queen, at least in the most passionate of senses. Charlotte licked her lips again and let the last of her vodka drink slide down her eager throat. She was suddenly thirsty for something a bar could not quite provide her, at least directly.

            “Are you hungry, Montgomery?”

            “Starved. All we’ve been eating the last few days is chocolate cake, and the office has sent me home with another today.”

            Charlotte quirked a brow, one side of her lips dropping to a puzzled frown. It lifted when Addison sent a lop-sided and toothy grin, followed by a humoured groan.

            “Naomi. Better off without the questions, they tend to bring answers, and no _way_ do you want those,” the redhead babbled. She glanced around and dropped her voice as her eyebrows rose. “Although I myself have a question I may or may not want answered: was I just asked out for a meal?”

            “Well, I thought you might want _someone_ to teach you how to lure leprechauns and usurp unicorns.” Charlotte hid her chuckle as she dipped for her purse and straightened up to cross her arms over her chest; she tapped her heeled foot in feigned impatience. “Unless you’d prefer to find magic on your own…?”

            “No no, a surprising acquaintance is good enough for me.” Addison clutched her purse and followed Charlotte out.

            The blonde remarked over her shoulder, “The least I can do is point you towards a good ‘toy’ shop—or perhaps a pet shop, if you would prefer a rabbit. Or perhaps a dolphin, for water-safe companionship…?” She strolled on at her customary quick pace, Addison laughing along behind her.

            “I’d never thought you the type.”

            “Well, for the record, you don’t know me,” the other responded—not entirely unkindly, at least no more so than her ordinary tones. “But when a woman breaks this many glass ceilings and intimidates the majority of those around her, she tends to find the objects that will stay the course. Who needs a succubus when one has a tenacious toy?”

            Addison blushed and thought that maybe, just maybe, she would get along with this snarky woman born to command.

 

 

ii. invite

 

            Charlotte knocked on the door late that night, when all her colleagues were deep in conversation. Addison excused herself, eyebrows drawn at who could be at the door. She raked a few fingers through her ocean-damp hair and pulled her cool silk robe tighter around herself.

            The door cracked open to reveal Charlotte. She was shifting her weight from foot to foot in a manner that Addison could only guess was hidden nervousness.

            “Charlotte?” she asked aloud, voice full of wonder. She swung the door open wider. “What are you doing here?”

            “I know where your house is from you mentioning you live next to Sam. I also heard about the party and knew you would be awake.” The blonde halted and took in a hasty view of her feet, swallowed quickly and crossed her arms as she looked up once more. “I wanted to apologise.”

            “Apologise?” Addie repeated.

            Charlotte nodded minutely. “Apologise. I know I say ya’ll are out to boot me from my job, but I always seem to be in the way just as much. I’m just doing my job; I’m trying to do what I think is right. I don’t know how ‘right’ today became playing tug-a-war with a surfer secretary over a patient. I don’t know how, but Oceanside seems to always pull me over lines.”

            “That’s an interesting apology, Charlotte,” Addison commented, brow raised. “It almost sounds like blame.”

            Charlotte blanched—at least, in the way Charlotte would. She went silent, her eyes widened and a blush tinted her cheeks. She rescued herself quickly.

            “I mean it to be an apology. A reminder that I am on the side of the patient and health, maybe, but an apology. I got in the way today. You saved a patient from undue embarrassment and created a future they otherwise wouldn’t have had. I can’t believe we missed that on my watch. I have never doubted myself as much as I have since you joined the Oceanside group, Montgomery.” She held up her hand before the other could speak. “And I don’t mean that for blame either. You push me. I had forgotten what it is like to be pushed. I have been complacent since I picked up my promotion. Sometimes we all need to feel the push we did when we were lower on the medical ladder.”

            Addison dipped her head, unsure of what to respond. She shifted and straightened.

            “Thank you, Charlotte,” she replied at last. “Those words came at a hard time for me. I appreciate them more for it. I’m sorry too. I never meant for my presence here to get in anyone’s way—today it was right, my hunch was right. I regret to inform that’s not always the case. I worried today that you would see that too. I’m still adjusting to this new non-hospital life.”

            Charlotte snorted, her equivalent of a surprised laugh, it seemed. “Good luck with that. I couldn’t do it. As much of a headache as the hospital gives, it’s what I know.”

            “Don’t worry. It takes a loooong time for that hospital headache to go away. I still have it.” Addison’s eyes flickered with her sardonic grin. “Or is my hospital headache just you?”

            “Touché,” Charlotte murmured, more comfortable to be back on track with light abuse rather than bear hearts. “We’ve spilled our souls on your doorstep. Do I get an invite or should I go back to my headache for paper work?”

            Addison crossed her arms and looked the woman up and down. “Will you RSVP?”

            “I always do, rude or no,” Charlotte answered, a budding smile present at her lips.

            “Would you like to come to my party?”

            “I would.” The blonde pulled a bottle of white and a candle from behind her back. “I believe it’s customary to come bearing gifts? I can’t bake, so a candle it is.”

            “You are officially my favourite guest. Gifts and an immediate response. Come on in.” Addison opened the door completely and ushered the woman in, gingerly taking the two gifts. “Wait.”

            Charlotte stopped on a dime and turned, the barest hint of fear coursing through her features before it was gone and replaced with a look of contrived impatience.

            “I wanted to say that you remind me of someone I once knew. All professionalism and cut-throat personality. I was always grateful when she decided to open up and come out. It feels the same for you. Thank you.”

            The chief at last offered a full smile, which jumped to her knowledgeable blue eyes and significantly slackened her pose. She was still poised, but she no longer appeared as stiff as the Barbie doll she somewhat resembled. She laughed. “Why Addison Montgomery, I didn’t know you were a mush. You’ve ruined your image.”

            “And here I didn’t know you were capable of a laugh and a smile at the same time.”

            “Well, they do teach multi-tasking and bedside manners to interns…”

            Addison entered the back room chuckling. It caught the attention of her colleagues.

            “We have a new guest member. She RSVPed and brought wine. She is our new role model.” Addison turned, grinning, then looked back to her crowd. “Charlotte’s here.”

            The group went silent. Charlotte shifted feet and crossed her arms, but at last took a breath and looked to Addison.

            “If an Ice Queen is your role model, you’re all a bit damned.”

            Violet cocked her head and took the chief in. She went out on a limb, “Yeah, everyone but Naomi.”

            The woman glared at her friend but finally laughed. The rest of the group joined in, bumping Naomi into further laughter. Charlotte finished her walk into the room and sat stiffly next to Pete, leaving a seat between them.

            Addison threw herself into the seat between the two and bumped Charlotte’s knee with a loose fist. “Good one.”

            Charlotte smiled, relieved.

 

 

iii. toys

 

            “Is this going to become a weekly occurrence?” Charlotte wondered aloud as she sat down at the bar. “The bar, your house… I’m beginning to worry I’m an alcoholic.”

            Addison laughed, less amused and more desperate. “Can’t survive living in Seattle if you’re not at least a little alcoholic.”

            “Impressive. Duke just gives you a twang.” Charlotte caught the bartender’s eye and requested a martini. She turned and sighed. “I thought today would be a mojito day. I got to meet one of my favourite runners, which means a lot to an old marathoner like me.”

            “So why isn’t it a mojito day? It’s not raining, that’s a good sign.”

            “She’s never going to race again. When will people learn not to go searching out doctors waiting to hear just what they want to hear? Doctors are meant to tell you what’s so, and often—too often--‘what’s so’ ain’t what a person wants to hear. It’s unfortunate, but it’s life.”

            “And now I can see why it’s a martini day, Cynic.”

            “Her coach and father-figure brought her to a doctor who gave her precisely what would hurt her in the end. Now she has to search for a whole new meaning to life.” Charlotte frowned and swirled her drink without sipping it. She merely stared. “I can’t even imagine.”

            “Oh, I don’t know, it’s not an impossibility,” Addison murmured. “I uprooted myself from a lifetime of hospitals and dropped myself in a private practice that includes a _quack doctor_. And to top it all off I fantasise about him. I really need to change _that_ life meaning.”

            “Has anyone ever informed you that you say too much?”

            “Just about anyone I’ve ever conversed with.”

            “Well, then, I wouldn’t want to be redundant. You keep on with that and I’ll wordlessly communicate with my martini.” Charlotte sipped her drink and tongued the rim gently, entertaining fantasies of tongue movements in her mind’s eye.

            “I really need to put a futon roll next to my bed. I can’t wake up screaming every morning.”

            This turned the blonde’s head. “Excuse me?”

            “I keep falling out of bed. In the morning, you know, after the…f-word. And I scream. Because it hurts. My whole head and body hurt. I should not wake up sore for _these_ reasons.”

            “Well, yes, a futon sounds good, then…” Charlotte grinned. “Or, if you want, perhaps guard rails? You have connections with paeds people.”

            “Oh, God, Cooper wouldn’t stop laughing!” Addison groaned and dropped her face to her hands. “Then _everyone_ would be laughing at me. Pete already _knows_ and made it _worse_. But it can’t be worse than Nae and Vi. How will I survive being assigned self-pleasure for _homework_? Like a high schooler.”

            “First, what kind of high school did _you_ go to? And second—too much info!” Charlotte stated through soft laughter. “They told you to masturbate to alleviate nocturnal imaginings?”

            “How did you do that? How did you make it sound like a scientific, medical problem?”

            Charlotte stared point-blank at the redhead. “Because it is? We just don’t have to give wet-dream conversations to girls at 13.”

            “That would have saved me. Yes—God, yes, they DID tell me to go home and have, I quote, ‘sex with myself.’”

            “I really could point you toward that store, you know. I know you think I’m frigid—hell, to some degree I concur—but I’ve been around here for a long while. You hear stuff in hospitals. You know how that is: you always hear more than you want to hear.”

            “Right, right. I’m not…experienced with, well…picking out what I like. Nae assigned practice with the shower head.”

            “That’s a good place to start.” Charlotte flushed and took in her drink again. “Or so I’ve…heard.” She turned and caught Addison’s eye. “So the other night, with the conversation about magic…”

            “I was joking, more so than you. Nae and Vi didn’t believe me when I said I don’t do it.”

            “Don’t do it? What do you mean?” Charlotte inquired, eyebrows inching ever higher.

            “Don’t _do_ it. You know…shower heads, rabbits, whatever else you said…”

            “You don’t use toys.”

            “I don’t…I don’t _do_ anything that would _involve_ toys. By myself. You know. I don’t.”

            Charlotte’s eyes widened. She began to gape but caught herself and glared to no one in particular, seemingly disappointed with losing her grasp on her strict demeanour. The whole conversation pulled her out of her shell. She didn’t know how Addison did it. The woman appeared to do it with _everyone_.

            “You don’t _masturbate?_ ”

            “Perhaps you could say it a little louder,” Addie snapped. It was less out of soured humour and more out of mortification. Charlotte only chuckled quietly into her glass.

            “I’m sorry. It’s just hard to believe. The shower head should keep you from a guard rail. If it doesn’t, I’m dragging you to that shop. I don’t think it’s proper that a gynaecologist should be ignorant of the concept that so often frequents her area of study.”

            Addison gazed over. The blonde was smirking into her glass; she dabbed her fingers against her mouth and licked her lips. The woman looked highly pleased with herself, back in her comfort zone. Addison was glad. It was a relief to see her back on her high horse. It was awkward to even pretend she was a fellow stumbling human, rather than a creature of robotics and stoic neurons. Of course, Addison was also lying: she realised she had entirely enjoyed this woman’s companionship on all different levels.

            “Well, if it’s a _medical_ _requirement_ …I do want to keep my connection with St. Ambrose open, after all,” the red-head drawled at last. She removed a pen from her pocket and scrawled an email address on a napkin. She slid it across the bar. “You already have my number through Oceanside. You’ll have to email me the address. Of the store with the stuff.”

            “I’ve spoken with more euphemisms and indirect terminology with you tonight than I have to with most teen girls. It’s hard to believe you’re an ob-gyn.” Charlotte tapped the napkin with her index finger and glanced down at it. A smirk was plastered to her lips. “Deal, ‘southern fire.’”

            Addison’s face flared. She hid it behind her forearm. “I wanted my personal email to be unique and ‘fire princess’ was already taken. Can we get off the Embarrass Addison train now? How is your runner?”

            “Nicole?” Charlotte blinked. Right, medicine: the thing she lived, breathed, ate and slept. How could she ever have forgotten? “She’s recovering…”

 

 

iv. what she wants

 

            “That was one of the most embarrassing weeks I ever had,” Charlotte said as soon as she felt Addison sit down beside her. The blonde didn’t even look up. “Forgetting where I parked my car? I thought…I honestly thought I might lose the life I love, or at least tolerate, like Nicole did. I thought it might be over. All because of what I thought was in reality a hobby for the weak.”

            “Sleeping, a hobby for the weak? Dour view of one of the human body’s necessities. I suppose urination is an activity for the weak of heart—or bladder.”

            Charlotte laughed without humour. “Yes, until this week I nearly did think that.” Addison took note of the fact that she was drinking kamikaze, presumably a step down from a martini.

            “I heard you got caught emailing by Pete,” Addison commented, grinning.

            “Mr. Handy Quack? Yes, I was emailing you about the shop. He taped magnets to my face.” Charlotte took a quick look at Addison’s glass and grinned. “I got two to the cleavage, too.”

            “Tease.”

            This didn’t bring about the response Addison had expected. Rather than offer a quick and cutting riposte, Charlotte turned down to her glass and appeared pensive—almost in a wounded fashion—as if her thoughts were cutting her instead.

            “I’m ashamed of what finally put me to sleep. As I expected, none of what Pete did with his voodoo arts ‘fixed’ me. Even Violet’s mind-workings failed with me. We harassed each other for an hour. I know she came to the conclusion that in my life has been utterly loveless.”

            “Ouch. That can’t be true.”

            Charlotte looked pained but tried to cover it with a look of scorn. “Of course it’s not. She thought I didn’t have sex or comfort. I have sex. I just hate the sleepovers.”

            “Hence why you know about shops?”

            “Don’t judge me, Addison.” The blonde looked burnt. She turned to watch over her shoulder at the bar and its patrons. They were mainly chatting merrily in groups of varied numbers. She couldn’t observe it in any terms beyond science. She sighed. “I’m fine with my history. People have had to work through worse things than an alcoholic, withholding mother—many of my patients have. I’ve had partners. I don’t keep them around long until we both drive each other insane. I’ve learned to live with that too. Apparently, though, I can’t draw comfort in myself. That’s a truth I’m still trying to face.”

            Addison just watched her companion—not friend, not acquaintance, not colleague: she was something different. A closed book or treasure chest, and only the prologue was every read aloud.

            “You’re pitying me. Stop it.” Charlotte’s voice was cutting. She glared. “I’m not doing this for you. Pete told me I needed connection, needed comfort. I have to stop keeping absolutely everyone at three arm’s length. Supposedly, I have to let people in.”

            “Yowzer. That one’s never fun.”

            Charlotte looked sidelong at the woman. “How do you say that? You seem to let everyone in.”

            “Hah! Then my genius plot is working perfectly.” Addison sighed and circled her shoulders. “I say too much. Don’t confuse that with letting people in. With me, the ability to be silent with a person is the real task. Silence gives me the heebie-jeebies.”

            Charlotte stared and didn’t answer, as if thinking of a response. At last it was clear she had no intention of replying.

            “You know, because nothing is being said. Nothing to think about except the junk that’s in my own head. Or yours, I assume—I’m sure there’s lots of crap in your head.” Addison’s eyes widened and she pressed her fingers to her lips. “Make it stop! I didn’t mention that I fill silence with useless, stupid, hurtful rambles.”

            The chief laughed fully, letting loose more than she had at any previous time. “I was just testing you. Glad to know revealing my past didn’t change your opinions on me. I want to make sure you still think I’m a bitchy insomniac.”

            “Fear not. It takes more than an evening of soul-bearing to change my opinion on cranky women-folk. Although the insomnia explains certain things.”

            “Oh believe me, it doesn’t. I’ll attack you whether I have two or twelve hours.” Charlotte flashed a satirical grin. It softened and fell; the mood was over. She went back to babying her drink. “I’d like to, anyway. It’s my comfort zone. Has been since junior high. Now I have to _connect_. It sounds terrible.”

            “What got you to sleep?”

            “You promise you won’t tell?”

            “No, but it’s connection.”

            Charlotte glared over the rim of her glass but made no comment on it. She sighed. “I’m telling you this to make up for the fact that I teased you about Pete’s hands after you shared with me last week about your fantasies. Only because of that.

            “I admitted that if he could find someone I wouldn’t irritate, I would consider marriage.”

            “Will you marry me?” Addison jested, grinning ear to ear.

            The blonde stared her down. “Ha-ha, very funny. Aren’t you a clever one.”

            “I can’t argue with that.”

            “I told him that my family didn’t believe in displays, about my mother and her problems… I told him I don’t have time for connection.” She growled at herself and glared down into her kamikaze. It didn’t shiver at her anger, but Addison could see how most suitors would shrivel in its target range. Those suitors had never met Miranda ‘The Nazi’ Bailey, Calliope ‘Cagefighter’ Torres or Erica ‘Steak Knife’ Hahn.

            Addison cleared her throat. “You can send that glare my way, you know, even if it’s directed at you. I can take it. I don’t take anything personally from you—I’ve got my walls up nice and high so you can’t hurt me.”

            “Another back-hander. Good on you.” But at least there was a sardonic smirk again. The glare flew up to meet Addison’s soft blue eyes, but somehow the anger diminished some.

            “All he said was that he was sorry, and he comforted me. Just a little rub to my shoulders and temples, a few comforting words and I was out until noon the next day. I didn’t even sleep until noon when I was a teenager!”

            “You were a weird teenager,” the paed woman remarked with a cocked brow.

            “That’s your response to all that?”

            “Pretty much. I ran out of inspirational speeches for the week after convincing a patient with Huntington’s to keep living and not run away from life.” Addison shook her head at the memory, at life chances she was waiting for. “Plus, I don’t want to go mushy on you. You’ll slap me.”

            “Damn right I will.” The tough act was back. Once again the blonde looked relieved.

            “And that’s where the hand comment came from.”

            “Yeah, says the woman who wants the same hands to drive _her_ to sleep after some fun.”

            “You’re terrible,” Addison announced. She sat up straight, ready to head home. “For your information, I had that chance. I kissed him and walked away.”

            Charlotte sat up as well. Addison grinned and her smile became taunting. So the blonde Ice Queen really did care about the conversation and reciprocation. Who knew the work-neurotic, comfort-deprived insomniac could be a good listener; that said something when one already had a colleague and friend who was a professional shrink with a comfortable couch.

            “He came to my house the other day, drunk and flirting. I stole his booze and turned him away. I couldn’t fully deny I was attracted to him.” Addison flicked her wrist at the thought, brushing it off. “He’s been married, it isn’t his track again. He’s looking for fun, I’m looking for settling. I told him, ‘Charlotte King told me you have good hands.’ He laughed, I laughed, I kissed him. Sam interrupted us. Pete made a comment about my looking for fun, I told him I didn’t want fun and that a person should get what she wants.

            “And what I want? I want commitment, marriage, diapers and all that crap.”

            “Eloquently spoken,” Charlotte teased. “I see you’re not a Violet.”

            “I am the opposite of Violet. I came down here in the first place to test my fertility.”

            “And?”

            “That’s a story for another day. It’s not happening for me anymore. But as I’ve told my patients so many times before, there are other ways to get down the child track.”

            Charlotte watched the flickering lights and laughed. “Maybe someday. When I learn to soothe myself and connect with others, maybe then. But I swear I’ll never let her become a disconnected workaholic like me.”

            “And I’ll never let mine work at Seattle Grace. We all learn our lessons.”

            They grinned, conspiratorial and partially-healed, at least in the sense that they acknowledged and knew their own neuroses.

 

 

v. stand up

 

            They both entered in silence, eyeing each other as the door swung open. It seemed sacrilege to attempt speech together before one or both had a drink or were at least seated at the bar.

            Addison held up her hand. Charlotte stopped, curious in her own disinterested way.

            “Should we get a table?”

            “A table?” Charlotte repeated, as if the thought had never occurred to her. That was most probably because it hadn’t: thoughts of companionship never really touched her mind—or if they did, for the shortest of seconds, they were soon replaced with medical charts and scalpels, rules and laws.

            “Yes. A table. I need camaraderie this week. I already ate too much pizza and drank too much wine with Cooper. It’s late, I’m sad, I need a table. Do you want a table?”

            “I want a table. After a day with cops around my hospital, I want a table,” Charlotte confessed. She followed Addison to one of the few booths in the back. They dropped their light coats, but both continued clutching their purse straps.

            Addison spoke first. “What is it tonight?”

            Charlotte lowered her purse and retrieved her wallet. She slipped a crisp bill from its depths and handed it to her drinking buddy. “Martini, please and thank you.”

            “At least it isn’t a kamikaze,” Addison remarked with a sad smile. Charlotte’s chin jerked up as she searched Addison’s face. “Yes, I caught on.”

            Charlotte gave a wan smile, reciprocating the redhead’s show of slightly soothed melancholy. “And what will you be having?”

            “Straight-up tequila. It ain’t my night either, sister.”

            “I guess that means it’s time for alcohol.”

            “Amen.” Addison was off to become their saviour. She ordered before she had even stepped fully up to the bar. The barkeep dipped her head to acknowledge the request and hurried to accommodate the patron. She returned with the glasses. Addison carried the alcohol back to the table and set the martini before the seated woman. She set the three tequila shots across the table and sat.

            “What happened to the days of relaxing and drinking wine?” Addison contemplated, sighing as she looked over her drink of choice for the evening.

            “…they never belonged to us?” Charlotte took the first sip of her drink and sighed, either at the drink or her life. Or, Addison considered, at both.

            “Valid point.” Addison fingered her first shot, wondering whether to throw each down whole or half them like she did when she was in high school. “Why do we continue all this stuff? It seems like a masochistic game.”

            “What, medicine or romance?”

            “Romance. …medicine. Both. Neither.” Addie took a breath. “ _Life_. Our lives.”

            “I don’t know about you, but I’m not sure I know how to live any other way.”

            “Go on, shoot—what was your day?”

            “We got a man shot in the leg who wouldn’t let go of a baby delivered in a convenient store under the gunpoint of the woman he had knocked up. The police are still questioning the witnesses. I would like to know the doctor who delivered the baby and why he or she didn’t call the cops or an ambulance.”

            “Wow, what a day. I just had to get in a bath with a woman.”

            Charlotte looked up quickly, eyes wide and a flush to her cheeks. “What was that?”

            “Oh, nothing exciting or erotic. We had a patient planning for a tub birth, which I hate, and we had it planned down to the T. But she was a widow and hit the final realisation that her husband was dead during her birth and couldn’t work through it, so I ripped off my delivery suit and jumped in behind her so she wouldn’t feel alone. I played…the husband?”

            “That must have been a unique experience.”

            “Well, not entirely. I went butch this one year of high school. It felt too weird.”

            Charlotte quirked a grin and snorted into her martini. “I can only imagine. You didn’t go for the crew cut, did you? Or the buzz?”

            “Worse. Mullet.”

            The blonde groaned. “You can’t get worse than that. That’s the most depressing thing we’ve discussed in weeks.”

            “Well ex _cuse_ me. I didn’t know my hairstyle impacted our moods quite that much. I don’t think it’s as bad being stood up.”

            Charlotte considered, weighing the two problems. “I’m not sure.” She took in the look on Addison’s face and her façade dropped off to reveal a touch of concern. “What happened?”

            “You remember the Pete story?”

            “The one during which my name was mentioned? Which by itself is weird?”

            Addison gave her a look, clearly expressing that it wasn’t yet the time for humour; she did so gently. “Today he picked me up, pressed me up on the counter—”

            “Minute details not required,” Charlotte reminded with a perverse smile. “But I won’t turn you away for them. I will consider it part of my ‘human connection’. Reminders, you know.”

            “It was very romantic. We kissed a while and Dell walked in on us. We are now locked in his ‘Dell Vault’.” They paused for a chortle. “We planned for some fun tonight, to see where things go. At least to relieve some more sexual tension.”

            Charlotte nodded. She hadn’t had that feeling in a very long time, but she understood it in theory. “And he didn’t show up?”

            “No, he didn’t. I lit the candles, I wore only a robe, I spent an hour on my hair. I set the scene and prepared. I was so ready. I was so ready…and I guess he wasn’t. He didn’t show.”

            “So you’re here.”

            Addison shook her head. “First, as I said, I got fat and drunk with Cooper. When he left I was still feeling low and not drunk enough so I came here. Here I am. Drunk, stood up and stupidly sad about a hookup gone stale. I’m stale.”

            “You’re not stale,” Charlotte assured, staring acutely at Addison. “You’re putting yourself out there. I’ve heard that’s a good thing to do.”

            “Bah on that. You’re not throwing yourself out there and you’re doing just fine.”

            “Intimacy problems and insomnia are just fine?” the other woman asked, grinning in her peculiar manner. “In that case, congratulations to me.” She moved her glass as if in toast and slid the cool liquid down her throat.

            “Good point. We’re screwed either way. What was I saying before about this _life_ thing?”

            “It’s useless and we’re masochists?”

            “That.” Addison toasted the statement and threw back a shot. “Another martini on me?”

            “If we’re going to converse along this line, let’s go for a kamikaze.”

            “No, I refuse,” the redhead announced, holding up her shaky hand with her eyes closed. “I am going to force myself into optimism. I’m getting you a mojito.”

            “From cynics to idealists,” Charlotte mused. “For this one day, I could use that.”

 

 

vi. coming clean

 

            “It was nice seeing you for a non-alcoholic drink during the light of day,” Charlotte mentioned. “You know, if I’m admitting things in the illumination of our acquaintanceship. Drinking companionship.”

            “Oh shut up Charlotte, you’re my friend.”

            “And I have never heard it stated so amiably, I must say,” the blonde twanged. “When did this happen?”

            “When I wanted to take home a baby and the only thing you teased me for was the name Batgirl. Real friends know when to tease only above the belt.”

            “And somehow you made it sound _sexual_ , to boot. We’re on a roll today.”

            “Speaking of rolls: Cooper?” Addison questioned, eyebrow high as she looked over her kamikaze. She was picking up new outlets to express her vice and emotion at the same time, it seemed.

            “I am going to castrate that man,” the blonde sighed, but her smile kept the ice from her voice. She looked, to Addison’s impressive skills at observation, happy. “Yes. Cooper.”

            “How did that happen?”

            “He didn’t tell you the juicy details?”

            “I have learned from Vi and Nae not to _ask_ for the juicy details. I can’t believe he caught a girl off the Internet. He’s so out of practice with that.”

            Charlotte blushed full out this time, more so than she had ever done during their unplanned-but-not-spontaneous post-dinner drink-chats. Addison took in the woman’s face and the set of her shoulders. A quirky grin spread over Addie’s thin lips. She commanded with no hint of nonsense, “Spill.”

            “Last week I got the feeling I should try to get out there, after our talk. I…well, I thought about where to meet people. There are only a few real places I consistently go: the hospital, where I refuse to tango with anyone romantically as I am the chief; my home, where there is no one but my cat; here, where I only speak to you; and the private practice, where the ape men wander.” Charlotte grinned and stroked the glass of her mojito. “I joined a few online communities.”

            Addison couldn’t hold it in. She let loose her laughter.

            “I hate you, Friend Addison,” Charlotte announced. Her glare was not convincing with her general glow. “I was canyouhandleme441. I cannot believe I’m telling you this.”

            “Well you are, sister, so keep at it or I’ll revoke my friendly requirement to keep your dignity intact, because I _can_ handle you 911.”

            Charlotte glared but giggled. She turned it quickly to a deeper chuckle, but Addison didn’t miss the presence of the first form of laughter. So Charlotte could sometimes be a giggling school girl; it was a notable observance.

            “I chatted with this tall dark and handsome man, you know the type. Charming, flattering, whatever. I dolled myself up for an evening meeting and arrived early. Near nine in stumbles Cooper and I told him to get lost, I was waiting for someone. That someone, I came to find, was him. I told him the event had never taken place and I ran.”

            “Sensible decision. I’m trying to figure out where the sense was lost.”

            “Oh, yes, says the woman pining for a Quack.”

            “Low blow, Miss Handled,” Addison quipped without missing a beat.

            “You think you’re so clever,” Charlotte huffed, at a loss for an immediate response. “You deserved it: yours was lower. Anyway, the next day was awkward. We talked about cotton balls.”

            “Tell me that’s not a euphemism. I heard enough of that thinking of trunks.”

            Charlotte raised an eyebrow but held up her hand. “I will let that one slide. No, it was sadly not a euphemism. Two mature adults secluded in a room could not find any other point of conversation, so we discussed the size cotton balls endorsed by the hospital.”

            “Sure sounds like a euphemism to me, but go on.”

            “Then there was you with Batgirl-the-Melanie and you wanting to be manhandled by Pete Goodhands, Naomi and Sam away, Dell home and the others gone. It was the elevator.”

            “Damn the elevator: the most potent aphrodisiac this world has ever seen. How’d it happen?”

            “I pressed the button. I had to wait. He came barrelling down the hall calling my name, invited me for a drink. I told him no, and no I would not have sex with him. He convinced me to have a drink with him.” Charlotte closed her eyes and smiled that terrible post-sex-and-I’m-remembering smile that Addison always hated to see unless it was in a mirror or on her partner, because otherwise it meant someone else was getting more than her. Which Charlotte was. But it was Cooper, which didn’t count for much. The blonde smiled up at her drinking friend and sipped her mojito before she added, “Somehow in the elevator he changed my mind. Then I was sweating on my stomach over his sheets. Some things are just a mystery.”

            “Yes, some things just are a mystery,” Addison repeated, thinking: such as why an intelligent, capable chief of staff would wish to sleep with Cooper or use the pseudonym ‘canyouhandleme441.’ Didn’t anyone teach these people that numbers were a no-no in computer screen names? Southernfire would win over every time.

            “But you. How did you spend your day, kamikaze?” Charlotte asked gingerly. Addison was shocked. ‘Charlotte’ and ‘gingerly’ seemed to fit as paradoxically as ‘Addison’ and ‘ginger’ fit with perfection.

            “Thank you for the reminder, Miss Handled,” Addison responded with a pout. She dragged at her kamikaze and smiled sadly at the feel of heat in her chest. “I got overly attached. I have damned myself and been damned for it since medical school, but this went beyond attached to a patient.

            “I got attached to a baby I knew could not be mine. Learned this baby’s tricks and idiosyncrasies within 24 hours. Delayed calling government services for selfish reasons.” The redhead sighed and slumped in her seat, wet tears blurring her sight. “I slipped, as I told you, because it was a hard day. Not just for the baby who didn’t make it, which reminded me of all my wasted eggs and…my baby that I…didn’t give a chance…”

            She flooded. To Charlotte’s credit, she merely placed a hand on Addison’s. Anything more tender would have set the neo-natal woman off further. As it was the practitioner ran her fingers under her eyes and took a deep breath.

            “It wasn’t the dead baby. It was the live little girl that I loved so quickly after meeting, and giving her up again, even under _perfect_ circumstances. I thought this would get easier through time, my feeling of barrenness and yearn to nest. It hasn’t. It’s worsening.”

            “Addison, I don’t know what to say…” Charlotte squeezed the hand and pushed her mojito over their now-customary back booth table. “Have a dose of optimism.”

            Addison lifted her watery eyes and offered a smile that didn’t quite reach them, but grew ever closer. She took a sip from the drink and passed it back, squeezing the woman’s hand in return. “Thank you. Nae helped as well, but sometimes what a person needs beyond a best friend is a network, a community. You saw me before. You understand.”

            “I did see you. I know I teased you about the Batgirl thing, but you were a natural. You _are_ a natural. If my paeds staff had the natural talent with babies you have, I would feel at ease.” Charlotte pre-empted her next statement with a hopeful smile. “You’ll get your chance, Addison. You draw out the optimist in a cold cynic; you draw out the inner peace in a baby born of turmoil. You’ll have your chance.”

            “You’re just saying that because you got laid.”

            “And I got laid.”

            “I have to hate you on principal, Miss Handled.”

            “Holy green goblin, Batman! We have a jealous unsatisfied woman in our midst!”

            “And now I see why out of the whole Internet, you somehow picked Cooper.” Addison threw back the rest of her kamikaze, but at least she was laughing again.

            It was also a testament to Charlotte’s slow softening—and recent activities—that she blushed and almost giggled, rather than spitting ice in Addison’s face.

 

 

vii. good cop, bad cop

 

            “Wow. Meeting for coffee out of the hospital. This is a first,” Charlotte remarked as she took in the settings of the local coffee shop. “I must say you’re more attractive as a vampire.”

            “Oh, I don’t know, I think I’ll dazzle you,” Addison responded with an easy smile as she sat across from the blonde.

            The chief took in her companion’s expression and body set. Charlotte’s eyebrow skyrocketed. “You hooked up last night. I can just sense it. You’ve got an inner perk.”

            “Look who’s the expert on sniffing out romance now, Miss Handled,” the redhead retorted. “From zero to 360 in one week flat. I know _you_ got manhandled again.”

            “Correction.” Charlotte held up her finger. “I do the manhandling. I top, period.”

            “Top…cop…” Addie murmured, clearly trying to draw the conversation to her new suitor in any manner possible. “Did I tell you I’m going to date a cop? Dating a cop? Whatever, _cop_? I feel like saying ‘cop a feel’ at least once a day. I’ll find a way to work it in…”

            The other woman laughed at the hardly-sequential thoughts. “Funny you should mention a cop. I’m sort of dating a cop.”

            “What? Cop? Dating? Charlotte? All wrapped up in the same heated concept?” Addison’s jaw dropped. “Tell me you’re pulling my leg.”

            “I don’t tell a lie. Cooper really pissed me of last week.”

            “And that makes him a cop?”

            Charlotte shook her head vehemently. “That makes him Cooper. However, I thought I would have the urge to slaughter him like any competitive man-beast that falls in my path. Historically I would have; I can’t deny I had the urge. But as I felt the anger and watched his self-righteous, pathetic face at this small inconvenient win…I was attracted. Hot for nemesis.”

            Addison belted out her laughter and covered her mouth with her hands.

            “A week ago I wouldn’t have known what you’re talking about, or at least wouldn’t have admitted it,” she said after a quick gulp of her coffee. “However, I seem to have solved my problem with Pete, The Pete Problem. It seems that we hit the most…sexual friction when we argue and go cut-throat. Somehow, we always lose our tongues in more ways than one. Thus, problem solved: stop indulging in the problems with Pete. It seems a little paradoxical to say it out loud.”

            “Certainly gives you the opportunity to date good cop,” Charlotte mused. She grinned tenaciously and slid her coffee from hand to hand. “Cooper told me he wanted to play bad cop, I told him it was strictly my role. He stole my class and my clients right from under me, made the hospital refund their money. He bested the chief at her own game. I wanted to pulverise him. So I did…during sex. I screwed the anger right out of me, and he seemed…well, I’m positive he appreciated it.”

            “So that makes him bad cop?”

            “Yes, I told him he got to be bad cop. Compensation for his eternal damnation to bottom, I suppose. Have to throw the dogs a bone once in a while.”

            “You talk of your romance in the most fascinating way: beating and dogs. You’d almost think the great Charlotte King is into BDSM-bestiality. But of course that would be a lie--she’s merely into ego competitions, top-play and angry sex.”

            “You sum me up beautifully.”

            They lapsed into a short silence, sipping their coffees from either side of the table. Both appreciated the pause for what it was—a companionable silence, which meant more to them as they knew the meaning and implication.

            “Dating? Cooper?” Addison finally remembered, comfortable to leave the foreign ideas in stunted utterances of surprise rather than fix them properly into questions; it seemed fitting with the idea of dating the Internet King of Disaster.

            “He asked if we were dating. I told him if dirty sex on a regular basis is dating, then yeah, we’re dating. He’s still never being on top.”

            “You drive a hard bargain for someone who only wants to be handled.” The private practitioner paused and swirled her finger around the lid of her cup, contemplating her next words. “I haven’t told anyone, you know. I don’t know if you’re keeping it a secret, but since Cooper hasn’t mentioned it, I haven’t. No one in the office but Nae knows I’m actually any good at keeping secrets, and she has no reason to suspect this one. So you and Cooper just come out about it when you want to. You know, if you want to.”

            Charlotte nodded her head appreciatively. “Thank you, Montgomery. It means a lot.”

            “Then please, call me Addison. At least during our weekly meets.”

            “Charlotte, equally.”

            Addison smiled. She tried to hide the melancholy she could feel wishing to infiltrate the sign of friendship. She had another secret, one she would keep from this happy Charlotte as long as she could.

            The redhead had always been a superb judge of character and interpersonal relations. She had been observing since day one. Through the man-woman drama in the co-op, she had watched Vi and Cooper with care as well.

            Even if Vi didn’t know of the man’s feelings, Addison could see them clear as daylight: it wasn’t dazzling, at least not from her standpoint. Damn the surprisingly pleasant blonde; Charlotte was really getting under her skin—the good way. She didn’t want to see what was surely coming.

            As was her custom, she would deny impending doom until it smacked her in the face. Then she would offer the woman a kamikaze and maybe even a night out dancing.

            She’d go after this good cop’s nice rear, and when the time came, she’d kick the bad cop’s rotten equivalence.

            “Men are still pigs,” Charlotte concluded with a quirky grin.

            “Amen, sister.”


	2. Devious in Daylight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Addison and Charlotte grow to spend more time together in daylight. Charlotte learns to 'do the talky' with more than just Addison, and Addison learns that rules are good, but often broken--sometimes for better and sometimes for worse.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was what I wrote for the second season. Occasionally the conversation doesn't seem chronological, which makes sense for me since I was writing these as I was watching through the show for the first time and didn't know what would come after each scene I watched/wrote. Regardless, I enjoy reading through it. This was the last season I did. If I were to do one for the latest seasons, it would not be quite the same, since somewhere in my head I would now recall what occurred. However, if any of you would truly like to see stories similar to this for later seasons, I could set it on my summer to-do list and get around to it sooner or later. :P Otherwise, if you're interested, you can definitely give me unrelated plotbunnies and I will try my hardest to accommodate them!

i. premature

 

            When Charlotte arrived at the location Addison had mentioned on the phone, the redhead was already there. Her shoulders were slumping. It wasn’t customary for Charlotte to notice such things unless on the job and inspecting for employee or patient wellness, but she did notice some things about Addison. Her cheeks and eyes were irritated; her shoulders were shivering slightly; her posture was beat. When the redhead turned further, the light reflected straight off her cheekbones and eyelashes.

            Addison Forbes Montgomery, the woman who had pulled off the liquid ventilation, was crying. Present tense: crying.

            The blonde hurried her steps and sat before the woman.

            “I’m regretting…I’m regretting that we did this for lunch,” Addison blubbered, but she pulled her act together. “Because I could really go for a drink.”

            Charlotte didn’t speak. She took the coffee the other woman offered and covered the surgeon’s hand with her own. The chief was, somehow, doing fine—her drink of choice would have been a mojito. She was sensing that Addison’s would have been possibly a kamikaze laced with arsenic—a new drink: a suicide bomb in a double shot glass. Today would be primarily about Addison.

            “I had to break hearts this week. I had to break mine, I had to break Pete’s, I had to break my best friend’s, I had to break my next best friend’s, I had to break my colleague’s, I had to break my professional family’s, I had to break a girl’s heart before she can properly hold her mother’s pinkie.” Addison sucked in a deep breath. There was an audible gasp to it, like a child who had cried herself to sleep. Charlotte was familiar with the sound from a far-off past. “I am so _broken_ right now.”

            “Addison…” Charlotte uttered, but beyond that, she didn’t know what to say. She remembered some of the last words the women had shared. “I like you, Addison. I’m not good with people, hell, I’m apparently pathologically allergic to human relationships, but I like you. That counts for something. It’s a million points for you.”

            The redhead looked up and gazed out of her drowned blue eyes. Her usually immaculate make-up was smudged. “Thank you, Charlotte. In a time when I am filled with so much self-doubt, that means the world to me.”

            “How can I help?”

            “Distract me.”

            “I am a sex daemon.”

            “With something the world doesn’t already know.” But Addison’s lips were quirking in the sign of an impending grin. It clashed with her heavy visage, but it was a start. “You’re a sex goddess. Continue.”

            “I had office sex with Cooper. I had to work to get him to shut up about relationships and best friends. Then I wore crotchless panties to his place and we angered each other enough that I actually _left_.”

            Charlotte frowned and crossed her arms at the wrist over the countertop, fingering her coffee cup. “I crawled back. I, Charlotte King, _crawled back_ to someone. I don’t do that.”

            “I got blown off. I do not get blown off. Or the Addison I was when I knew me didn’t get blown off. This new one? She delivers arguably unethical premies, turns down men she likes and spills her best friend’s secrets.” Addison glared at her hands. “What have we become, Charlotte?”

            “I don’t know. I honestly…don’t know.” The blonde looked entirely uncomfortable with her own thoughts. “For a half a day I actually _considered_ it, you know? The saccharine new relationship feeling, the coming out to friends, the idea of a first romantic getaway. He actually had me at that precipice ready to not _fall_ , but eagerly _throw myself over_. I do not do that. I do not throw myself off cliffs for men, so I can plummet out of the happy new relationships and ultimately hit bottom. He made me consider it. I am uncomfortable with that.”

            “What did you tell him?” Addison inquired, interested and fully distracted from her own more troublesome problems.

            “I crawled back to him wearing no panties and told him we weren’t telling his friends or going on a fancy vacation to touch monkeys, but we could go on an accessible vacation so that I could flee if necessary. I bet you guess what comes along next.”

            “The sex daemon released!” Addie quirked a brow. “Bet he topped.”

            Charlotte stared her companion down; it was the only answer either of them needed. “I abhor you.”

            “I like you too, Charlotte,” the neo-natal surgeon reiterated, grinning lopsidedly.

            They sipped their coffees and lost themselves in the currents of their minds.

            “We’re liars, you know. That’s what we seem to be,” Charlotte summarised, blinking herself out of her analysis.

            “I’m a compulsive truth-teller. Either way, we’re equally screwed. What are you lying about?”

            “I told Cooper this isn’t serious. I told him that I didn’t want to tell his friends, your friends, because you’ve got this incestuous little family that I have no desire to participate in.”

            “I agree, and had I the choice, neither would I.”

            “Liar. You’re hot for Pete. We are both liars.” Charlotte bit her lip. “If it weren’t serious I wouldn’t have crawled back.”

            “Do you want me to blow your problems out of the water again?” Addison offered amiably, scrounging a sense of humour she feared she didn’t have.

            “Yes _please_ ,” the blonde huffed. She plunked herself back in her chair with a sigh, spinning her coffee cup in her hands.

            “You’re going to hear about this anyway, because the records will end up at St. Ambrose,” Addison justified to herself. She took a deep breath. “The Practice is on the brink of going under. Naomi didn’t tell any of us—well, them, really, I wasn’t even here. I had to pull it out of her word for word. I promised her that I wouldn’t tell anyone. I promised multiple times. But at the end of the day I had to do what was right for the family, and what’s right wasn’t hiding things. I told Sam.”

            Charlotte stared on. Her shock was evident. “Holy Hell.”

            “Agreed. That’s why I would prefer to be drunk, but it is one o’clock in the afternoon and that is not acceptable.”

            The blonde was silent for a moment. It wasn’t her job as off-hours chief or as a friend to comment on the business side of the practice until it was brought to the hospital’s attention. Instead she thought back to her time at the hospital with the redhead. “You were brilliant, you know. I don’t say that to most people. Any people, really. You stuck to your guns for ethics and integrity but were there when the time called for it. You thought on your toes and made it work. You made an important decision to do what you thought was right. You really worked through the grey area.”

            “I haven’t left yet. I’m in the grey. It’s too early to see where this goes.”

            “That seems to be the theme of the week.”

            The two nodded and went back to their coffees and conjectures.

            “Thank you for coming, Charlotte.”

            “Thank you. Someday I’ll admit to myself that these meetings help me too.”

            “Seems like you’re well on your way.”

 

 

ii. attached

 

            “Do you know why I didn’t do our lunch meet up yesterday as we had planned?”

            Addison glanced up at the blonde next to her at the counter. “No, why did we change the day?”

            “Cooper told me that we were meeting for lunch, even when I said we don’t do public. He gave me a time and place. I’m disgusted with myself.” Charlotte grabbed her coffee when the teen dropped it to the counter.

            Addison hurried to pick up hers and follow the lady who seemed stuck in a tornado. “You’re disgusted for having lunch with Cooper?”

            “No, that would have been bad enough. I put my all into it. My stupid one-hour lunch break and I went to a romantic place, ordered wine, had everything planned…it was like a date. A lunch date.” Charlotte huffed and scowled at her mug. Her eyes could have equally boiled or frozen it. “I turned into a hopeless romantic and he cancelled on my by _text._ Later I found out that Violet was in the room, but couldn’t he have stepped out and had the decency to call?”

            “Speaking of calling. Officer Swat hasn’t.”

            “What is with men?”

            “They’re still beast pigs and we’re still trying?” Addison responded, sighing. “And it’s the least of my worries. Dell quit the office and was replaced with a bimbo. The practice split and re-joined. I had to tell a couple happily in love that they were brother and sister due to sperm bank use in the past, and had to hold a crying woman who had lost her virginity to her brother only to find out he knew even before they were married. My best friend isn’t speaking to me and chose have sex with her ex-or-current husband over rebuilding the bridge with me.”

            Addison took a deep breath. “And yet the thing I can’t stop thinking about? Kevin didn’t call. After an excellent date, Kevin didn’t call. I called him.”

            Charlotte winced. “What did you say?”

            “At first I was alright. Then I rambled. Then I went neurotic and told him I had lost my best friend, realised I was talking to someone who didn’t even know me, and concluded that I should hang up. I was crying. On the phone after a first date, I cried in a message.” Addison sighed and hung her head. “I have really lost it. I don’t know what to do without Nae, without being able to talk with her.”

            “You’re the closest I’ve had to a best friend, and I already acknowledge that if you were to suddenly disappear, my life would be lacking,” the other female responded slowly. She frowned. “God, it seems to be the time of heartfelt revelations.”

            “What do you mean?”

            “Cooper came after the lunch fiasco and I tried to keep him out. He told me he had spilled to Violet, and he told me it was because I matter, otherwise he wouldn’t have told her. And damn it, I got butterflies in my stomach when it happened. So I took him to the bedroom to kill the butterflies.”

            “You really are getting attached,” Addison commented with a slowly growing smile. “He’s getting to you. Our Cooper…”

            “Shut up. I feel like a school girl, and I wasn’t even like this in high school.”

            “We’re both acting like fools in love. At least you’re getting action with it.”

            Charlotte grinned. “Lots.” She sobered quickly. “Good luck with Naomi. I’m sure she’ll come around. As much as you’re hurting, she’s probably at that level.”

            “Ouch,” Addison admitted, frowning, “That doesn’t help much. But I had to do it. She’ll forgive me eventually. She always does.”

 

 

iii. many meetings

 

            “We’ve seen a lot of each other lately, haven’t we?” the blonde questioned, looking away as she sipped her drink—something new that Addison didn’t recognise.

            “I generally think that when I’ve had three surgeries with someone in a day,” Addison replied, fingering the base of her wine glass. “I’m—well, yes, we’ve been in touch.”

            “I need more lifting. What’s the funniest thing that’s happened to you this week?” Charlotte asked with another look around the bar. She couldn’t look Addison in the eye; the redhead had the idea that her friend needed to speak of something but as of yet hadn’t cornered the courage.

            “I fell off a treadmill thinking of Pete having sex, injured my knee and came to the hospital out of shame.” The natal surgeon sipped her wine and couldn’t hide the smile blooming at her lips. “And soon enough I was at the firing range with Officer Twat—I mean Swat—and we were kissing. In dorky yellow firing-range glasses.”

            “Your life is an excitement,” Charlotte admitted bitterly.

            “Your turn.”

            “Huh?” Blondie was gone again, up somewhere in the expansive space that was her mind in turmoil.

            “Funniest thing. Shoot.”

            “I…told Cooper to drown in the bath tub?”

            “Well, I see your relationship issues have been resolved,” Addison replied tersely, the ghost of a grin hugging her lips. “Whatever for?”

            “He turned a romantic back-rub into an ‘everyone at work hates me and wants me gone’ whine. I hate whines. I love back-rubs and -scrubs. He was gonna drown at work, I told him to drown in the tub, ‘cause I had to go to work to capture an Addison.” Charlotte was hiding a smile in her drink—was it blue, really?—and swapping crossed legs under the table.

            “Thank you for giving me an escape, Charlotte,” the sanguine surgeon said with authentic gratitude colouring her tone. “I needed a day at the hospital, even though I turned you down the first time. I needed it.”

            “But not enough that you didn’t turn me down the second time,” Charlotte answered, her remorse finally soaking through her delivery. “It was so hard to see you through the day, see you happy and surgical, and hear at the end of the day you didn’t want it. I don’t get rejected, not at home, not at work, not at bars. Rejection is not my thing and it never has been. I don’t go out on limbs to give people chances; they suck up and prove themselves.”

            She sighed, her eyes watering. She was damning herself, Addison could tell. The redhead held her tongue as the blonde continued. “I saw you happy and working, I had the position, you’re the best and I asked. I don’t know how to deal with the concept of ‘no’. What I hate…what I hate is that you have every right to say no, because your office when it’s functioning really is like a family, and I’ve seen it. I’ve damned it a few times through Cooper, but I’ve sure as hell seen it. A hospital is a lot of things, and a lot of them make you happy; but a hospital ain’t really a family. If it is, it’s one big incestuous, mean family.”

            At last Addison chuckled. Charlotte’s voice was still low with regret and remaining pain, but it had gained its humour.

            “Charlotte, the practice may be small, but it’s incestuous too, so you’ve heard,” the other female remarked with what she hoped was reassuring self-deprecation. “I didn’t lie to you: it was nice being back in my old saddle, but at the end of the day it reminded me why I left my old seat behind. I wanted something new; I wanted names and faces, connection… It’s been missing in the practice, but I still had it more in my work than I ever imagined. It feels good to be part of a team.”

            “And I’m not enough of a team for you,” Charlotte muttered, glaring down at her drink.

            “Charlotte, you are a dream team.” Addison reached across the table and rested her fingers on her friend’s fisted hand, following it when it moved and gently squeezing. “If you ever joined the practice I would jump for joy, except that I would know you would be miserable. The hospital is right for you. Some days, it is right for me. Every day it is not. I need to find some balance, so I’m not relying on scalpels for centeredness and drama to ground me. I loved working with you. My not taking the job is no reflection on my feelings for you or for working with you. Your wooing was perfect.”

            “It wasn’t perfect enough if I didn’t get you,” the chief of surgery retorted, slightly stung but far less so.

            “You wooed me better than Officer Swat and he got me in the end. You’ve still got your friend.”

            “I hate when you get drunk enough to start rhyming,” Charlotte criticised with a smirk. “But thank you. It helped. Now I don’t need Cooper to yell at me.”

            “Yell at you? I shouldn’t be concerned about you, Miss King, now, should I?” Addison inquired, eyes wide and questioning as she removed her hand. She missed the contact immediately but knew physicality in friendship held certain connotations that she wasn’t looking to provide.

            “You should be if you call me Miss King again!” Charlotte laughed. “Cooper saw that I was upset and told me no sex until I told him what was up. He told me I had yelled at him earlier that day to knock sense into him and that he’d do the same, despite my reiteration that we don’t do ‘the talky.’” The blonde pouted with the slightest hint of a smirk still present. “I told him you rejected me and he let up. Men are easy.”

            “Men are easy when they’re messing with a sex-goddess and trying to deny contact,” Addison clarified, grinning as well. “Officer Swat brought me donuts with sprinkles as an attempt to woo me despite my rambling and incoherent message.”

            “I see that my strategy really _was_ more effective,” her friend twanged. “Doesn’t he know all he needs to bring you is a breach birth or anything more exciting?”

            “I think donuts are easier to find for a cop…don’t they have a radar?”

            Charlotte raised her eyebrow. “I should cut your tongue out for that, given my father was a cop…but I’ll forgive you, because some stereotypes stick rightfully. I remember something about surgeons and egos.” She paused for a moment. “So was I interrupting a date when I approached you at lunch?”

            “No, as I was telling him at that precise moment, you were interrupting a sandwich between surgeries and not a date. He was asking me on a date when you arrived.”

            The chief blushed some, barely noticeable under the lights. “I’m sorry. Not as a chief or surgeon, but as a friend.”

            “Oh no, don’t be. I was elated and just telling him how centred scalpels and cutting made me feel. I’m surprised I don’t frighten him off, but of course he then took me to a gun range, so I suppose we all have our strange vices.”

            “Anything else exciting?” Charlotte ventured, sipping her drink once more.

            “Dell.” Addison brought her elbows onto the table top.

            “The computer?”

            “The man who worked at your hospital for two shifts, who I already told you about.” The redhead grinned. “I swear you retain ten times the information for anything surgical and force out anything else.”

            “Surgeon. Ego. We covered that,” her companion intoned.

            “Well, for one thing he called me a badass for performing 4 operations on an injured knee. He fixed it up. Then Nae told me we both looked too happy at the hospital and stormed off saying she had never asked for anything, which is essentially my problem with her right now anyway. The whole no-talky thing that is getting resolved step by step, or so I’ve heard. I think I knocked some sense into Dell with the ‘talk about it’ speech and my comment that he was running away. When I got back Nae still wasn’t talking to me but Pete was in my office telling me I did the right thing.”

            She took a breath. “Which, by the way, thank God, because I’ve had it up to my eyebrows with no one speaking to me and no one complimenting me.”

            “Surgeons. Egos. We covered that,” Charlotte repeated, smiling fully, “And I complimented you all day. Which I don’t do, so take it knowing that.”

            “Thank God for you too, then,” the other replied. “Rumour has it Dell is coming back. I hope it’s true. He can bring some sanity back to the office, I hope.”

            Charlotte stroked her drink gingerly. “Hope he doesn’t push Cooper over the edge. I don’t see it happening. You’re snobby and elitist together, but you all make a good team. Goodness knows I’ve invested enough in Cooper lately. He almost saw me cry. Almost. Over _you_ , you pesky woman.”

            “What can I say? I’m a heart-breaking heart-throb.”

            “You’re certainly back on good terms with yourself,” Charlotte noted with a perverse grin. If there was a dash of pain left behind her eyes, neither of them made comment.

            “And the sex goddess got more clothes-off time,” Addison said through a grin and raised her glass. Charlotte touched her own to Addison’s. The redhead added, “I swear sometimes you sound more like a nudist—sorry, naturist—than a chief.”

            “If it were just Cooper and you in the world, maybe,” the blonde considered with a wry smile. When she realised what she had said a flush covered her face once more, but to her credit she did not stutter out a remedy that would only close her teeth over her foot. Instead the two friends just laughed and chattered on, silence speckling their conversation beautifully.

 

 

iv. knowing

 

            “I hear your office had a conference call recently,” Charlotte greeted in lieu of ordinary salutations as Addison took a seat at one of the beach chairs. The redhead held up her wine in return and they tapped glasses gently, smiling at company and the appealing sound of glass-matter meeting.

            “You heard this through Coop, I suppose?” the redhead questioned, smiling at the idea.

            “Yes. He hung up because I informed him that someone needed to lick my lolly pop.”

            “Kinky.”

            Charlotte laughed. “Well, perhaps. But I did really have a lolly pop.”

            “Sounds like quality time. I got lucky after the call too. Kevin came with Chinese, wine and films just to make me happy. I was very happy. The way to my heart—food and the idea of sex.”

            “You jumped him yet, Ms. Repressed?” the blonde inquired, grinning some as she sipped her wine.

            “At that point, no. I devised a list of rules. Sex rules. To save myself heartache and early ends. I focused on work instead. I concocted a plan to reinvent Naomi and Sam’s working relationship involving cupcakes and getting mean and…the whole thing blew up in my face. They decided it was wisest that we _vote_ who was best fit to run the practice.”

            “Because a vote has never finished the split between a crowd of people, has it?” Charlotte pinged, shaking her head. “Sounds like a bunch of egos tangled up in business.”

            “Which is exactly what it was. I heard you weren’t doing much better.”

            “Patients and administration were getting on me for that mount of surgeries we were supposed to perform, as if working in a hospital is about numbers and not patient care. Then Coop shows up and tells me he doesn’t feel like having sex ever again unless we do the _talking_ thing, so he explains to me that a woman told him he shouldn’t be a doctor because he has nude pictures online.”

            “Still?” the other female wondered, crossing one arm and tucking her fingers in the nook of the other.

            “That’s what I asked. Apparently he’s still signed up for ‘ten-ish.’ I thought I was a sex fiend.”

            “Match made in heaven, if I do say so myself,” Addison remarked, grinning. “So you talked.”

            “He pushed me into talking. I prefer to _deal_ , he prefers to _discuss_ ; we had to find some sort of middle ground…I’m not used to it but we’re working. At least we both agreed there’s no connection between personal and private life. I still took my site membership down after I met him.”

            “Does it hurt that he didn’t?”

            Charlotte bit her lip and glared over the railing toward the tumbling waves. She sighed; it came out as more of a growl. “Yes. I’m not a prude or a romantic, but I guess I had hoped somewhere along the line that he would. He keeps talking about the couple stuff I haven’t experienced in years. In my experience, if one is part of a couple, one is not looking for sex on the Internet.”

            “I would be frustrated and hurt.” Addison nodded. Charlotte didn’t seem to have anything more to add on the subject. “I had to decide to essentially re-virginise a woman so she could get popped by a new husband abroad so her parents could go home and be happy. She first said she was raped, but soon it came out that she was in love with a younger boy and in a relationship, but was choosing to give it up for her parents. In the end I went through with it. It’s what the family desired.”

            “I can see that being a grey area in the practise,” the chief mentioned, her voice clipped with the sound of her professional persona. “Especially during an election.”

            “It was a hotspot. Naomi agreed with my initial rejection, but she was the only one. The real controversy was actually Meg: she’s just a random woman who showed up and kissed Pete in the office. They went off behind closed doors and I just _know_ they were getting busy. I could tell Pete was interested. I told him as much. He told me I’m a romantic who wanted everything the way it was—talking to Naomi, with Sam and Naomi back together. I did get to learn he was a great doctor in his day.”

            “The voodoo doctor started out legit. What do you know.”

            Addison laughed. “Doctors with No Borders and everything. Saved children, heroic stories… spontaneous, open man, too. I don’t understand what this ex-wife did to him.”

            “Something terrible,” Charlotte agreed, frowning.

            “Anyway, my week was ridiculous: Violet told me I may be the only one in the office that’s trustworthy—I told her she has a low bar; Kevin invited me for a weekend away of fantasy living and I turned him down for my sex rules; Naomi and Sam fought at work; I performed the hymenoplasty, witnessed Sam and Naomi together again and was voted leader of the practise.”

            “Addison! You were holding out on me! Why did you keep that to yourself? I thought you’d call me with news like that!” The blonde was as ecstatic as she would ever show: she was smiling without restraint and her face was entirely open. “Congratulations Addison. Guess we’re both chiefs of sorts now. How do you like the new title?”

            “I’m petrified. Everyone in the office save Sam and Naomi voted for me. I refused to vote. I wasn’t in the running, either; I was nominated in the vote. Naomi and Sam stormed out, but in the end they _made_ out, so it seems things were settled well. You’re going to kill me with the other fact I held out, though.”

            Charlotte raised an eyebrow at her companion. “I can hardly stem my excitement. Please, share.”

            “I slept with Kevin.”

            The shorter woman’s eyes bulged out as her neck craned tensely. A slow grin spread over her lips. “About time! You broke your rules.”

            “I broke my rules on the floor next to the door, and it felt oh so very good,” Addison concurred. Her smile was lopsided and wide. “It was divine. I haven’t felt that good breaking rules since…ever. I may have to devise more rules to break.”

            “Oh no, what have we turned you into?” The two laughed together and settled back. “I’m jealous in a way, you know. I got all dressed up for Coop, ready to physically congratulate him in his personal life for his prowess professionally…and he turned me down to talk. He told me about himself and damn if it wasn’t one of the most romantic things I’ve experienced. I can’t believe I’m That Woman. I even told him about myself when he asked. I’ve never told a partner of mine that ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ is my favourite book…well, not since high school, and they weren’t lovers, just flings. I shared my history and my hobbies.”

            She sighed and leaned back into the chair, gazing up at the stars. “He was right: it was nice to get to know each other. By the end I was too tired for sex. I actually cuddled. It seems ridiculous to me know.”

            “Don’t judge yourself too harshly,” Addison urged. Her features were soft, although she kept her voice level. Charlotte wouldn’t have appreciated her softening verbally at this point. “If it feels good, go with it. Don’t judge yourself based on your past.”

            Charlotte grinned. “Is that why you broke your rules?”

            “That’s why I broke my rules. You’re breaking yours. We both feel good.”

            “We’re a couple of rebels.”

            “Yes, but we’re rebels happily getting action and connection.”

            Charlotte smiled and sipped her wine; Addison hummed: things were looking up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed it. (:

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed it. (:


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